April Fools
by F86
Summary: A chance encounter in the morgue.


April Fools 

Doctor Gregory House plugged his Stratocaster in and prepared to play Baba O'Reilly in the morgue. His team was struggling with their newest case, but if he ignored his cell phone, they might not find him for hours. As he readied himself he thought he heard a noise. As he began to play there was a definite noise. He stopped and listened, but heard nothing. He hit one chord and it was back. Picking up his cane he limped closer to one of the freezers, placing an ear against it, he hits a chord on the Strat. There is a load thump… from the inside. House treats himself to a Vicadin and opens the freezer, before he can react, two hands reach out and grab the door jamb and the slab rolls out. House staggers back and stumbles into a chair as a seemingly healthy, muscular, naked guy extricates himself. "You know they don't build these things like they used to." He says to the gaping doctor.

"Time was when a couple of good smacks would pop the latch." Greg watches as the pony tailed man walks to the closet and tries to open it. "Got the key?" the befuddled doctor shakes his head as the man finds a lab coat thrown over a chair and puts it on. "Duncan MacLeod" he says as he extends a hand. Greg notices that the hand is very cold as he takes it.

"How did you end up in there?" House asks as his curiosity begins to rage. Duncan shrugs. House limps to the rack with the charts and finds one with MacLeod's name and reads quickly looking for signs of misdiagnosis or something that could make even a doctor think a living patient was dead. His eyes focus on the cause of death, car vs. pedestrian accident and MacLeod was the pedestrian, a long list of injuries followed, several of which would be fatal, and there was also a note that the "accident" may have been a murder. Diagnostically this is uninteresting, except the corpse is looking for shoes on the other side of the room. Perhaps it was the wrong guy. Checking a photo, that theory is dismissed. Greg thinks what the differential is for a guy that "died" of major injuries but if fully healed in, he looks at the chart and calculates, six hours.

Greg catches a change in demeanor of his "patient" as Duncan tenses and becomes very alert, moving to the hinged side of the door and flattening himself against the wall with a pair of office scissors in his hand eying the door. The door opens to reveal Doctor Cuddy with a plastic bag of clothes and a long object wrapped in newspaper. Cuddy enters cautiously eyeing Greg with the look she gives him when she is not amused by his latest escapade. She closes the door and locks it.

"Hey Duncan" she says as she tosses the bag onto a desk and puts the long object next to it. The two embrace ignoring House. "I came as soon as I could when saw your name on the report." she says as they break the embrace "I was tied up with a fund raiser or I would have been here sooner."

Duncan replies "I thought I read you ran this place. How have you been?"

"I've been well. Good to see you again."

"We'll have to catch up later." Cuddy smiles as Duncan dresses and leaves.

Cuddy turns to House, folds her arms, and glares. "What the devil was that?" House stammers "You can't let him leave he's a medical marvel!" Cuddy continues to glare. "Well you CAN'T."

Cuddy responds "What? Keep a perfectly healthy man in a hospital against his will?"

"I could have found a reason." says House knowing his leg precludes him from running after Duncan.

Cuddy points to a chair and House sits down. "Listen to me carefully House. I cannot have you talking about this or starting to research it so I'm just going to tell you. There are people who are immortal, more or less, and live amongst us secretly. You will need to take my word for it."

Greg stammers, a medical marvel for him, "There are more like him? And how do you know?"

Cuddy responds "There are not many, and I know because I am one of them."

A wide eyed House responds "You are…?"

Cuddy slides her curvaceous rump onto the desk, "I was born in Ireland in 1825 and came to America because of the potato famine….." Several hours pass as Cuddy lays down a long story ending with "….. and then I met you in medical school. The rest you know." Greg's eyes have glazed over.

"By the way, House, it is April first." Cuddy says as he leaves the morgue.

House sits alone in the chair bouncing his cane thinking. "What is the differential? Which is more likely, immortals including a 185 year old Cuddy or that Cuddy had gone to ridiculous lengths to pull a prank on him? Concluding the latter House heads back for his office, he was never going to admit that she had him.


End file.
